


now it's all rusted

by whataboutateakettle



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-17 05:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5855314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whataboutateakettle/pseuds/whataboutateakettle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were both <i>so sure</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now it's all rusted

**Author's Note:**

> Look, let me explain: 
> 
> I found this post about Ryan Adams' cover of Bad Blood on Tumblr last year:  
> [ _"I made a playlist of just the two versions of Bad Blood and now I’m imagining that two very self centered people broke up with each other and are too self involved to realize that they both feel the exact same way."_](http://whataboutateakettle.tumblr.com/post/129324037285/i-made-a-playlist-of-just-the-two-versions-of-bad)  
>  and I've been thinking about this ever since, have written this in bits and piece in the time between now and then. 
> 
> I'm using this as a writing exercise, and decided that the why and when and hows of their break up was less important than the who of who these characters are and how they would deal if something really tore them both apart. 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Megan made me post this so you can decide whether to thank her or blame her.~~

His apartment feels cold, and dark, and empty. It’s irrational, he knows, nothing here has changed since two days ago. He drops his jacket on the table, takes the few steps needed to the fridge and pulls out a cold beer. He would prefer something stronger. Hell, he might even prefer a tranquilizer. But he settles for the beer. Everything is where he left it, as he left it. The only thing that’s changed is him.

* * *

She drops the hammer. It’s not enough, not loud enough, not hard enough. Across the room Sylvester flinches and she ignores him. She should feel bad. Usually she would feel bad. But there’s no … _space_ for bad right now. She shoves the helmet on her head and picks up the torch. As she brings it to the now dented mental tube the noise grows, and the sparks glow in front of her and she feels the vibrations run through her arm and into her whole body. She presses harder.

It’s loud now. Too loud to think. Good.

* * *

He’s going to have to go out, he decides, as he’s sitting in his armchair sipping on his weak piss-ass beer. It’s his favorite brand, but it tastes like water. It tastes like he’s drowning. Goddammit, every good just has to turn into a fucking nightmare. Every. Single. Stupid. Thing. He blinks a couple of times, realizes how tightly his fist is wrapped around the bottle. His knuckles are white. It’s his favorite beer and there’s only one thing he feels like doing with it. He whips around, throws the bottle against the wall and it smashes, the beer staining his wallpaper. For a moment he can breathe again. But he knows it won’t last long. He needs something else, something stronger. If nothing else he’s going to go find the biggest bottle of scotch he can and bring it home, finish as much of it as he can before he stops being able to feels his legs. Yeah, that sounds about right.

* * *

Paige is staring at her. She can’t see much through the fireworks sparking in front of her, but she can feel it. Paige has already let her know what she thinks and she doesn’t need any more doe eye and doubtful comments. She puts the torch down for a moment, pulls up her helmet. The garage is filled with silence, for a brief moment, and Paige’s heels rip through it. Each step closer feels like its stabbing her. And each step closer makes her want to stab her. All she wants is for this place to be empty, all she wants is to be left alone with her loud, heavy, unfailing tools. She picks up a new sheet of metal and drags it up onto her bench. Then picks up the torch again, lets the sparks fly between her and everyone else in this crowded place.

* * *

Somewhere behind him his phone rings, and he ignores it. It sounds like it’s a million miles away anyway. He’s still staring at the beer on his wall, and the beer that’s now pooling on the floor, among shards of brown glass. His answering machine beeps loudly, and Walter’s voice fills his quiet living room.

“Toby, I just wanted to make sure you were… coping. I imagine you’re feeling – uh – upset about everything that’s happened. It’s none of my business but we – I thought you should take a couple of days off. It might help.”

He’s turned around, staring at the machine, the taunting blinking dot. Of course they fucking don’t want him there. She probably told him to do it. To be honest, he’s more surprised she hasn’t packed her own bags yet.

In his pocket his cell phone vibrates. And he pulls it out, ready to ignore it if it’s Walter again. But it’s not. It’s an old friend replying to a recent question.

_Sam’s old joint. 9pm. 2k buy in._

He checked the time, it was just past 8:30 now. If he left soon, he could stop at an ATM and get there early. Which meant more playing time. Which meant more time for him to work his magic.

* * *

This time it wasn’t Paige coming closer, it was Walter, hands shoved in his pockets. She pauses, looks at him through her mask.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she tells him, burns the torch a little stronger just to remind him she can.

He nods, like he knows. And maybe out of everyone here he knows her best. But right now he knows _nothing_ about what she’s feeling or what she’s thinking or what she needs. “Obviously you’re uh-”

“I need some time. If you don’t mind.”

“I told him to take a few days off. Maybe you should do the same?”

She looks at him, first thinking she can’t believing he’s suggesting she leave, then thinking she doesn’t believe that he told Toby the same. A wave of hot desperate anger rushes through as she lets herself think about him, lets herself wonder what he’s doing, whether he’s trying to call her, whether he’s drinking himself dead.

* * *

He goes to the bathroom to wash his face, lets the water run as cold as it can, before splashing it against his skin. His whole body tenses against the cold and it the least numb he’s felt all day. He does it again. In his bedroom he grabs a new t-shirt, fresh, clean, untainted by heartbreak. He grabs his jacket by the table and walks out, lets the door slam behind him.

* * *

She bites her lip, doesn’t know if she herself can handle all the things on the tip of her tongue. But she puts down the torch, and takes off her helmet. From across the room she can see Paige and Sly watching her, all worried eyes and tight lips. She wants to ask them to pick a side, to pick a team. But she can’t. Because she’s not sure which one they’d pick. Because she’s not sure which she’d pick.

She grabs her bag off the floor and throws it over her shoulder, walks out the nearest door, even though it’s further from her truck, lets the door slam behind her.

* * *

He won nine grand, then lost twelve but it doesn’t even fucking matter, not really. He nurses the double whiskey in his hand, sure that the bartender is going to cut him off soon but that doesn’t matter either.

What matters is that he still sees her when he closes his eyes, and he wishes he couldn’t, because she’s looking at him likes she hates him and the thought alone feels like it’s eating him from the inside. He knows exactly what she would say if she were here, if she saw him like this. But that eats at him too, and he needs to drown whatever this is, needs to kill it before it kills him. He swallows down the rest of his drink in one gulp and feels it burns down his throat.

* * *

She’s driving faster than she should, she knows and she doesn’t care. What she doesn’t know is where she’s going, but she doesn’t care about that either.

She cares that she can feel him sitting in the passenger seat staring over at her, studying her the way he used to. He could look at her like she could see straight through her. No. Straight _into_ her. And she hated it. She hated being see-through to him, hated feeling like glass, hated worrying that a crack would break her when she spent a lifetime pretending she was shatter-proof.

A signs tells her she’s leaving Los Angeles and she presses down on the gas, drives faster, lets the sound of the engine run through her body.

* * *

He wakes up, somehow, in his own bed, his wallet lighter, his head heavier and his stomach empty. The walls feel too close, and the sheets scratch against his skin and he squeezes his eyes shut against it all of it.

* * *

She wakes up in the back seat of her truck, tucked in the corner of a parking lot in New Mexico. The sun is hot through the window and the air in the truck is suffocating and she feels like she’s burning from the inside.

* * *

He was so sure it was gonna work out.

* * *

She was so sure they could be happy.


End file.
